Lifelines

Heinz Holliger, an exceptional oboist, pianist, and composer, did not compose anything for piano for almost 40 years after his 1961 work “Elis – Three Nocturnes”. A whole series of musical tributes and birthday greetings composed since the beginning of the 21st century was then published in 2019 under the Schumannesque title “Albumblätter” (Album Leaves) and has now been recorded in its entirety for the first time by Kirill Zvegintsov. These are typically Holligerian, highly intricate showpieces with many references, which are expertly explained in the album essay.

These works are combined with early and late piano works by the Swiss composer and pianist Jürg Wyttenbach, who died in 2021 and had a close musical relationship with Holliger. In the last years of his life, this expert in New Music took on the daring task of completing Beethoven's sketches for an alternative third movement for his Piano Sonata Op. 109 – an undertaking that only such a skilled pianist and composer could attempt. In the last days of his life, Wyttenbach was able to listen to the premiere of this reconstruction by Zvegintsov. The Ukrainian pianist combines and contrasts this experiment with the original modern works in a very stimulating way.